Christina Duquesne
by EmilysMiamiSunrise
Summary: Calleigh's cousin comes to visit. An incident occurs and she has to stay longer than expected. Some E/C moments!
1. Chapter 1

1_Disclaimer - While these ideas are my own, they are based on the awesome characters developed by the writers and creators of CSI:Miami. As far as I know as of the last time I worked on this story (8/23/08) the details of my story are not drawn from any known events - past, present, or currently being developed or investigated._

_* By the way, IF your name just happens to be Christina Duquesne, I just thought of the name one day and didn't mean to base it on anyone real or fictional._

On a rather hot, late Sunday afternoon when the sun was a bright orange ball in the sky, Christina Duquesne exited off of I - 95 in south Florida singing loudly in the car as she made her way to her cousin's house. Christina's uncle was Calleigh's dad. The two hadn't seen each other in 6 years. They had always had a strong bond but it hadn't been the same since Christina's family moved to North Carolina.

As she turned onto Calleigh's street - still singing loudly - she smiled as she pulled into Calleigh's driveway. She stopped the car as Calleigh opened the door.

"Hey Calleigh! I'm finally here!", Christina said excitedly. The two hugged tightly. To an outsider, Calleigh and Christina looked more like sisters than cousins; with long blonde hair, beautiful eyes and matching southern accents.

" Oh my gosh! Look how much you've grown, how have you been, how's your mom and dad?" Calleigh exclaimed.

"Good, good, everything's good. I'm following mama and daddy's footsteps by teaching. Daddy's retiring after this year and mama is still teaching 5th grade." Christina answered. "How are you? I can't believe how HOT it is here. I thought we had humidity in North Carolina, but it's really bad here!"

"I'm great, I love my job and I love Miami, it's so fun here. When I'm not working you and I have some serious catching up to do by the pool" said Calleigh.

Calleigh helped Christina bring her bags inside. The two chatted as they walked into Calleigh's very big, very pretty, two-story white stucco house. As Calleigh showed her around the house, Christina couldn't help but notice the framed picture on the mantle of Calleigh and a very cute, Cuban looking young man. Hmm, she thought to herself, I wonder who that could be. She didn't say a word to her cousin who was busy talking away about the different rooms in the house and showing Christina where she would be sleeping.

After settling in, Christina came back downstairs ready to catch up with her favorite cousin. Calleigh had some snacks for them to eat while they talked.

"So" Calleigh started, " I have to work tomorrow, Tuesday and Wednesday, then I am off on Thursday and we can do whatever you want. There's the Miami Seaquarium and a place called the Parrot Jungle Island that we can visit and I know you want to hit the beach as well."

"I definitely want to get on that beach - a lot - and maybe go snorkeling" Christina said. She also hinted that she'd like to meet some of her friends, thinking Calleigh would mention something about the guy she was with in the picture she'd seen earlier but she never said anything about it. The two talked until Christina, tired from driving all the way from North Carolina, was ready for bed.

Early Monday morning Christina woke to the aroma of strong coffee wafting through the house. The windows were opened allowing a soft breeze to wander in. The sun was barely up as she walked down the stairs to find her cousin drinking coffee, reading over a case file, or something like that. Christina didn't know exactly what Calleigh's job entailed, but she knew she was very good at what she did and worked with some of the best CSI's in the country. She didn't even look up as Christina stood beside her, glancing at what she was reading.

"Cal, since we were little you've been immersed in work, I can't believe you bring it home with you!" Christina said. She found a box of cereal Calleigh had left out for her and opened the refrigerator to find some milk.

"You know my job is very serious, I like to get a head start before I go in." Calleigh told her. "If you want to, you can go outside and pick a few oranges off of my orange tree and make yourself some fresh-squeezed orange juice!"

Christina went outside and for the first time, saw Calleigh's backyard. It was beautifully landscaped the way she knew it would be. Her older cousin was very organized, so why wouldn't her backyard be the same? She had a pool with a hot tub and a fountain, an orange tree, a lemon tree and some other really nice tropical plants that she had no idea what they were called. She noticed a black truck in the driveway beside the house with man in it but really didn't pay too much attention to it, thinking it was just someone leaving for work.

When she returned to the kitchen, it was almost time for Calleigh to leave for work. She showed Christina where to find everything she would need to make her own orange juice as well as other things she might need while she was home by herself. She told her cousin to have fun and that she'd be home as soon as possible.


	2. What happened?

As she watched her cousin leave, Christina decided she would take a quick shower, maybe take a walk around the neighborhood and then watch some television. She picked out some clothes to wear for the day, grabbed a towel and headed for the bathroom.

After her shower, Christina toweled off and walked into the bedroom to get dressed. It was then that she heard a noise but dismissed it as pipes or something else in Calleigh's house that would make a strange sound. She put on her shorts but before she even had time to pull her head through her shirt she was violently thrown onto the bed.

Trying to figure out exactly what was happening she heard a male voice say, "You put my brother in jail, now it's your turn to get punished." Something hit her hard on her head making her see white. Her head throbbed as her attacker hit her repeatedly.

"Looks like Calleigh's not so tough after all, little miss priss can't do much without her crime-fighting kit, huh?" The man jumped on top of Christina as she scratched him and tried to pull him off of her.

A tearful and terrified Christina managed to say, "I...I'm not Calleigh, I'm her cousin! Please leave me alone!"

"Yeah right, I've never heard of identical cousins, now shut-up!" the intruder said, as he tightened his grip.

Kicking her feet as hard as she possibly could, Christina finally saw the person who thought she was Calleigh and kicked him hard where she knew it would get him off of her and knock him down. She was able to free herself and ran down the stairs, tripping on the last step and falling hands first on the floor. Searing pain pierced her left wrist making her scream. Knowing her cell phone was on the table near the door, she picked herself up, grabbed her phone and ran out of the house, barely seeing out of her eye that the intruder had hit.

Out of breath and in pain, Christina saw a place where she could hide across the street. There were huge bushes in a neighbors yard that would offer a way to hide if the person who attacked her came to find her. She dialed 911 and was able to tell the dispatcher her name and Calleigh's address before passing out in pain from her injuries.

At the Miami-Dade Crime Lab, Calleigh was analyzing the striations on two bullets she'd recovered from a robbery when Horatio knocked on the glass door and walked in. His face looking very serious, Calleigh froze, never thinking that her cousin could be in any type of danger.

"Calleigh" Horatio started, "There's been an incident, the address from dispatch is yours. Ryan and Natalia are on their way over to check it out right now."

"Oh my god, Christina!" Calleigh whispered.

Calleigh had mentioned to Horatio and Eric that morning that her cousin was visiting her for the next few days. Never in a million years did she think something like this would happen. She knew she wouldn't be able to work the case, but she could at least head to the hospital with Eric to see her cousin. Eric, seeing the worried and tearful expression on Calleigh's face, sped as fast as he could in his Hummer to the hospital where Christina had been admitted.


	3. Evidence and Care

1At the hospital, Calleigh and Eric were taken directly to Christina's room. She was cut and scratched everywhere and her eyes were bruised and almost totally swollen shut. Her left arm was in a cast up to her elbow as well.

"Christina", Calleigh whispered. "Christina, sweetheart. Oh God. What happened?" She looked at Eric with tears in her eyes. He placed his hand on her shoulder. Christina barely acknowledged Calleigh's voice because she was very groggy from pain medicine and her eyes were almost totally swollen shut. She did however manage to move her arm that wasn't broken in Calleigh's direction.

"Christina, I'm here honey. I'm so sorry this happened. My partner Eric is here with me, he's going to check you out and see if the person who did this to you left anything on you that we can take as evidence, ok? You're gonna be okay. I love you." Calleigh said.

Eric began by scraping under Christina's fingernails. A still scared Christina jerked her hand away from him, still unable to really see much of anything. Calleigh, still by her side, reassured her that Eric was very good at what he did and that he wouldn't hurt her. After that Eric spoke gently to Christina telling her that he was going to look at some of her cuts to see if he could find anything.

When Eric finished processing Christina under the watchful eye of Calleigh, the two said goodbye and headed back to the lab.

While they were driving Eric said, "Cal, if there's anything you need just let me know. I am so sorry about your cousin. We'll do everything we can to find whoever did this." He then put his hand on hers. He didn't see it since her head was turned away, but Calleigh blushed and a smile crept onto her face.

The next day, Calleigh had to finish some things in the lab so Eric went back to the hospital to talk to Christina. He hoped to find her awake and alert. When he arrived, she was sitting up and though her eye looked horrible, she had it opened and was looking around.

"Christina," Eric started, "My name is Eric Delko, I work with your cousin Calleigh, I came with her yesterday to see you. Do you remember me?"

Christina vaguely remembered his voice but since she hadn't seen his face yet, she wasn't sure if it was the same person she had heard the day before. She shook her head no.

"Yesterday I scraped under your fingernails and took some other clues to find out who did this to you. Do you think you could tell me anything about what happened at your cousin's house yesterday?"

Trying as hard as she could to think about what happened her eyes filled with tears. "It's okay, Christina, you've been through a lot." Eric said. "I know this is difficult, but please try for me and Calleigh. Anything you can tell me will help us a lot."

"I... I remember getting out of the shower," Christina said with a raspy voice. "And then I heard a noise and then I got hit really hard and knocked down."

Tears started flowing, harder this time. "The man thought I was Calleigh, he was mad because she had put him in jail. He was after Calleigh! Please find him, I don't want anything to happen to her!"

"Did you see his face?" Eric asked.

"No...no sorry" Christina answered.

"That's okay, anything else?"

"He had brown hair and I think he had brown eyes. He was really strong and he was tall."

"Okay, Christina, thank you so much." Eric said, flashing a smile.

It was then that Christina put two and two together and for the first time realized that the cute young man in the picture with her cousin was the CSI who was asking her questions

Eric met Calleigh in the hallway of the lab when he returned from talking to Christina.

"Hey Eric, how's my cousin?" Calleigh asked.

"She's more alert today and she looks better." Eric answered.

"Thank goodness!, What did she tell you?"

"She told me she was getting out of the shower and someone attacked her. She is afraid that you may be in danger. She told me that whoever did this to her is after you because you put them in jail. I think she may have meant to say that whoever did this did it because you put their friend or relative in jail. If you put someone in jail, they'd more than likely still be there. Can you think of any case that you've had recently where someone threatened you or something like that?"

"Actually," Calleigh told him, "there is one that I can think of. Do you remember the road rage case we worked, we easily solved it but the man was adamant that he shot the other guy in self defense."

"I think so" said Eric. "Wasn't he the one who kept staring at you? H had to go with you to court because he feared for your safety. We need to figure out if he had a brother."

"That should be easy." said a different voice. It was Natalia who had overheard the last part of their conversation. "We found some hairs in Calleigh's house that obviously do not match Calleigh or Christina. Since we already have the one brother's DNA in CODIS all we have to do is see if there are any alleles in common to the DNA from this hair."

"If that doesn't work, I have the scrapings from under Christina's fingernails." Eric replied.

"Good, let's get going" said Natalia.

Later on, Calleigh got a call from the hospital letting her know that Christina could go home that day. Calleigh was able to take the rest of the day off and pick her cousin up and take her to her house. Eric caught her before she left the crime lab.

"Whoa there! You are not going by yourself, I'm coming with you. I've finished up what I need to do and H doesn't mind."

Calleigh smiled. "Well come on then." she said.

Christina's doctor met them as they walked to her room.

"Ms. Duquesne, I know your cousin is just visiting Florida for a few days, but she will need to stay a little while longer. Hopefully this will not be a problem. When the swelling goes down on her arm, she needs to come back here so I can put a shorter cast on her wrist. The swelling will go down in 3 or 4 more days."

"It won't be a problem" Calleigh responded.

"Calleigh!" Christina exclaimed. "Oh and hey... um.. I forgot your name, sorry." She said to Eric.

"That's okay, it's Eric", he said. "Calleigh and I are going to take you back to her house. Looks like your trip to Miami is going to last a few days longer than you thought."

Christina looked confused, looking back and forth between Eric and Calleigh. "What? Why" she asked.

"Your doctor wants you to stay a little longer so he can watch to see how your wrist is healing and put a shorter cast on it in a few days", Calleigh explained. "Also, we may need to ask you some more things about what happened."

Eric, being the gentleman, helped Christina and Calleigh take Christina's belongings to the Hummer and the three of them grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed to Calleigh's house. In the car, he asked Christina all kinds of questions about herself, where she lived, and other normal questions. Christina even told him about some of the things she and Calleigh used to do together when they were little. He stayed with them at Calleigh's house until late in the evening. Horatio had arranged for a police officer to stay outside Calleigh's house that night just for extra protection.


	4. Meeting Horatio

The next morning, Christina awoke to the sound of Calleigh's phone ringing. She overheard Calleigh talking to someone about what had happened and something about coming to the police station. A knot formed in Christina's stomach, she didn't want to talk anymore about what happened, and the possibility of having to point out her attacker gave her chills all through her body.

Christina got out of her bed, walked into Calleigh's room and leaned on the edge of the door waiting for Calleigh to finish her phone conversation. Still shaky, she didn't even know if she wanted to ask what was going on.

When she was finished, Calleigh placed her phone on her bedside table, took a deep breath and began.

"Okay, so here's the deal. You are coming down to the crime lab with me this morning. My boss, Horatio wants to talk to you."

"No," Christina replied. "I can't, I am too scared. I'll talk to you, I'll talk to Eric, but I don't know anyone else and I don't want to go through this again."

"Christina, unfortunately, that's not an option. We will be leaving in 30 minutes. Now come on let's go get something to eat." Calleigh told her.

When the two had finished eating and getting dressed, they got into Calleigh's Hummer and drove to the crime lab. As they arrived, Christina saw a man in a suit walking towards them. He walked with power and authority and Christina was pretty sure it was Calleigh's boss.

As slowly as she could, to waste time, Christina messed with her seat belt and took it off. Before she knew it, however, the man who she was sure was Calleigh's boss had opened her door, stuck out his hand and smiled.

"Christina," he started, "My name is Horatio Caine, I am sure Calleigh has told you about me. Let me help you out of the car."

"Okay, thank you" Christina said.

"Why don't you come with me and we can talk. We'll meet back up with Calleigh in a few minutes."

Christina was nervous at first, but she found that talking to Horatio wasn't as hard as she thought. His voice was calm and soft and she felt at ease. She was able to tell him everything she remembered and even manged to smile a little. Horatio showed her mugshots of different people but none of them looked like the person who had attacked her. Soon though, that would all change.

Working a little overtime Ryan and Natalia had been able to get a DNA sample from Calleigh's house that was neither Calleigh's nor Christina's. They were able to match the unknown sample to a man who was already in the system for burglary. Ryan and Frank managed to find the man and were bringing him in.

Horatio was still talking to Christina when Ryan and Frank just happened to walk on the other side of the crime lab with the man they had picked up. At the same moment, Christina looked over and sunk as low as she could in the chair, nearly on the floor.

"That's him!" she whispered fiercely. "That's him, oh my gosh, please don't let him see me!"

Of course, he did not see her as Ryan and Frank were walking quickly. They had no idea that Christina would be there, talking to Horatio.


	5. Being brave, being happy

"Christina, here's what's going to happen," Horatio started, "I'm gonna get this guy in a room and I want you to make a positive identification. Do you think you can do that for me?"

A strong feeling of bravery swept over Christina like she never felt before. "You know what, Lieutenant Caine, I can... and I WILL! I am gonna make sure he never does this to another person. He wanted to hurt Calleigh. She's my cousin and my best friend and I'd do anything for her. Let's go!"

Horatio put the man in an interrogation room along with a few other men. Christina and Calleigh were placed in another room and watched the men line up. Christina stood strong and was able to positively identify the person who had inflicted so much pain onto her when this was supposed to be a fun trip to see her cousin in Miami.

When it was all said and done, she was able to stay at the crime lab and was even allowed to watch - behind glass, of course - Valera in the DNA lab, Ryan and Eric working on tire impressions, and even had a quick lunch with Horatio and Calleigh. She decided her cousin had the coolest job ever.

Around 6 o'clock, Calleigh was finished with work and she and Christina headed home. Eric joined the two girls a little later at Calleigh's house.

"Christina, is there anything you'd like to do? Seems like you'll be here for at least 3 more days." Calleigh asked.

Christina's eyes lit up. "The whole time I've been thinking about this trip I've wanted to see if the water down here really is as turquoise blue as people say it is. When I was in the hospital, I would close my eyes and pretend I was laying on the warm sand. Could we please go walk on the beach?"

Eric and Calleigh looked at each other and then at Christina. "Sure" Calleigh said. "Let's go!"

A short walk up the street led the three to a white sandy beach with a few palm trees scattered around and not too many people. Christina was amazed at the beach since it was a lot different than the beaches she was used to in North Carolina. She, Eric and Calleigh walked along the edge of the water looking at seashells and kicking water on each other, being careful to avoid splashing Christina too much and ruining her cast.

Amazed by the variety of perfect shells, Christina walked a little faster than her cousin and Eric. She found a whole sand dollar and turned around to show them just in time to see Calleigh and Eric lean in and quickly kiss each other on the lips.

"I SAW THAT!" Christina shouted.

"You did not see anything!" Calleigh shouted back, blushing furiously as she and Eric continued to hold hands.

"Our secret's out now." laughed Eric.

Christina just smiled, knowing that any other trip to Miami would never be this interesting.


End file.
